Being an email user for many years, it's still my preferred method of communication. However, with the appearance of social networking websites, primarily Facebook, I've noticed that email has become more of a business means of communication rather than a personal one. Personally, I don't view this as a good thing but then again, I despise Facebook so my opinion may be a bit biased.

I agree with both of your comments. The popularity of television, motion pictures, and YouTube and other videos has led to a reduction in reading anything longer than one paragraph by many people. The difficulty with videos of vocal speech compared to writing is that it is difficult to search for content, carefully check for errors, or understand complex content. Graphic content (charts, graphs, and photographs) can help in some cases, but written text is still better (in my option) for many types of discourse.

At least Wikipedia and dictionaries are both text-based. And email is still very important, both for personal and business communication. I agree that some are moving away from email for personal communication, but the ability to send complex content to specific people is still very useful.

I'm somewhere in between the group of (mostly young) people who have an email address only because they're required to have one in order to receive password reset emails, boring notes from their teacher, and perhaps the bi-annual long letter from their grandmother (to which they're inclined never to reply), and the group who prefer email above anything else, and perhaps even use their phone as - gasp! - a telephone!

Coincidentally, I'm also in between those two groups age-wise, and I think that has something to do with it. I was 18 the first time I connected to the Internet, so I have a clear memory of the days before the (widespread) Internet, but I'm also young enough to have adapted to the new way of things where so many things happen on computers that used to be done in the physical world.

Maybe that's the reason I like both email and instant messaging. I engage in epistulary email-writing with a few select friends regularly, and everyday chit-chat with a substantially larger group of friends via instant messaging. I prefer instant messaging to phone calls in most situations, because it's more private in a public space like the bus, and also I don't disturb everyone around me like I would do if I were talking on the phone.

I refrained from using FB Messenger for a very long time, because I didn't (and don't) like Facebook per se, but when they separated Messenger from Facebook I found it much easier to engange with my friends regularly through there than through email, and I wouldn't have to look at photos of their cats and what they had for dinner last night.

I agree with both sentiments: email is used less for personal communication than in previous years, and email is still is a cornerstone of business communications. I think one of the reasons email is used by businesses still is *control*. You may have your email hosted in the cloud, but you're probably still able to back up your entire mail archive which is a requirement in some areas of business.

That's one of the reasons I like email as well. I have email messages going back to the mid-90's because I've been able to transfer them between various email hosts over the years. Who knows what will happen to messages sent via Facebook, Twitter, or Snapchat in twenty years from now? I have no way (that I know of) to create a backup of those messages.

From what I notice in my life is that MOST people (especialy younger ones) do NOT use email anymore. Mostly they prefer whatsapp,Viber,Skype or the FB messenger. I even saw this with some companies. True...in larger companies email still plays an important role.

However here in germany i still see that many copmpanies still use written letters and/or fax!!! When I moved here in 2014 I was realy surprised that they still use the fax. I personaly do not like to use the fax because i think its obsolete now in 2016. You can do wunderfull things with a scanner/modern smartphone and email:-)

From what I notice in my life is that MOST people (especialy younger ones) do NOT use email anymore. Mostly they prefer whatsapp,Viber,Skype or the FB messenger. I even saw this with some companies. True...in larger companies email still plays an important role.

I'm in my 20s and don't use WhatsApp, Viber or Facebook at all (I don't even know what Viber is). I used to have a Facebook account but closed it for many reasons, including dislike of the superficial conversations and the time-wasting. As for email: I love it - my favourite method of communication. I realise that this makes me eccentric for my age - literally no one I know who is my age uses email like I do (they all only have email addresses because they're obliged to as a means of signing up for online services). I find it so personal and meaningful compared to the other aforementioned channels.